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Monday, June 26, 2006

June 24-25, 2006

Well it was a whirlwind of weeks. We had appointments everynight for a realtor and also a visit to Nurse Naru lined up Wednesday. Also Dad ad Barry were coming down Wednesday to bring an MGB body to a buyer in our neck of the woods.

Monday night we had a nice meeting with Rita Minion from O'Brien Realty but we felt she was over confident on the sell price of our house based on her Competitive Market Analysis (CMA). ON Tuesday we met with Mandy Mulligan and Sheila Wight from Century 21. They were dog people and very friendly and gave us a great power point presentation. We were very happpy with them when they left.

On Wednesday we had a break from the realty talks. Erin left a tad early to go home to greet Barry and Dad. THe MGB transaction went well. I got home a shade early to to see them and get up to Leonardtown to the Doctors.

We had a most interesting Doctor's Visit. Nurse Naru asked Erin if she wanted to have some procedure done to speed up going into labor. We both were surprised and declined and said we had until next Friday. Nurse Naru then says you are due TOMORROW! Wow where did we start thining the 30th. I think we must be thinking on an early first prediction but even some of friends and family remember the 23rd. With Bary and Dad down in the van with Liam and us going out to dinner Erin declined. We are scheduled for this Friday the 30th and Erin will be given a Non Stress Test then. If are both trying to relax now and just let things happen in Gods hands but it is hard.

After the visit we all decided Bear Creek was the place we ought to be so we loaded up the van and went find a bear to see. Barry and Dad seemed to enjoy the place. Barry walked around and looked at all the prizes mounted. We took a tour of the base and Barry and I talked about reenacting and guns when we got home. I showed him my Enfield reproduction and gave Dad and old buffalo fake gun to fix. We also got a call from a realtor Donna Brown who was the selling agent when I bought the place. I sent up a tentative appointment with her Monday night.

Thursday we all had breakfast together before they headed back to Pennsylvania and Thursday evening Lorrie Garner from Re/Max came by to interview. She has a wealth of experience and was the listing agent we the house was built and also the sellers agent the first time it sold. Lorrie had been by many months back to give us suggestions on teh sale of the house. Once again her bussiness like approach and very accurate CMA and realistic approach to the value and sell of our house sold as as our agent to be. We still needed to have one more interview with Long & Foster. Since there were two agents from Long & Foster, Pennie Platt on Friday and Donna Brown on Monday we decided to cancel Pennie's appointment and asked Donna to come over Friday. All seemed setup Friday and Pennie had the flu so it now made sense for Donna to interview. Well as luck would have it Donna ended up in the hospital Friday so we decided that Lorrie will be our agent.

So with free time on Friday evening I decided to get Erin out of the house and took her to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. We had a nice dinner and did a little shopping at Target. We picked up some sheets for the Bassinet that was given to us from Issac, a co-worker of Erin's. She was having a VERY hectic day when Issac walked up out of the blue and asked Erin if she would like any baby items he was to get rid. We got a bouncy chair and some games for Liam too. It was a very sweet gesture that really happened at the best of times!

On Saturday morning Erin went to a Pregnancy Massage that was given to her as a shower gift from her co-worker Mike. His wife gives massage therapy. Liam and I hung back at the house and had breakfast and played. Erin floated back through the door with a big smile talking about how wonderful she felt. At 40 months pregnant that is a good thing and gave her a little stress relief. While they napped in teh afternoon I stained windowsills in our bedroom and downstairs and worked on the computer. It was a rainy weekend so we stayed in a lot.

When everyone woke up Liam gave Mommy a massage before Erin ran to the market to get some items to go over to the Dankos for dinner.

We had a nice dinner with the Dankos and thier 11 year old Michael even grilled the chicken. Their Greyhound Nancy is definitely Stumpy now as almost all of her tail has been removed so we hope she starts to recover now. We brought over Ash but after a lap or two through the yard he went to sleep on Nancy's bed. We Also talked about teh Danko's house and possibilities of purchasing it but they still need to check into the value of their house and decide if they are going to sell it. Although we like it a lot and it is our favorite house we are keeping all options open and still watching a few other houses. We did enjoy the visit and talked about other things beyond the house although this was the primary conversation. When we got home we got Liam to bed and watched most of Friday Night Lights. We finished watching it Sunday morning. It was a decent football flick based on a true story.

We were VERY lazy trying to relax on Sunday. We puttered around the house but did venture out in teh afternoon to get some bribery gifts for the nurses at the hospital. We got lotions from Bath and Body Works as well as a gift certicate Erin got for the lady who massaged her. We also got chocolates from teh grocery for the nurses and a card of thanks. It helps break the ice when we arrive at the hospital and the nurses really like it that we think about them. We also drove around to a couple of our favorite for sale homes and they had sold during teh past week. That is actually good. It may mean the market is still active even with impending summer. That night we watched a movie called Aquamarine. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I were a teenage girl but we made it through it.

So now it is a new week and we are just anticipating! I told Erin she was like a bomb right now. I am just waiting for her to go off in the best of ways! The gang here is taking us and another co-worker and his wife to lunch today to celebrate the impending births. Maybe we will go into labor there today. ;-)

9:33 am est

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

What a weekend! Still no baby yet, but plenty going on. On top of it all it was about 94 degrees out all weekend. UGH.

Friday morning we started gathering items for our Yard Sale. I worked on the shed mostly, and then Russ joined me in sorting through some junk.

I had a doctor’s appt around 11:30 that morning, so we made our now weekly trip to Leonardtown to check in on the baby. Heartbeat is still strong, still wiggling around, so no real sign of impending arrival thus far.

We grabbed some lunch, ran a few errands, and returned home to continue bringing down items for the yard sale. We worked well into the evening, and that’s when the hurdle got even higher.

I climbed up into the attic to hand down items to Russ for the sale. I wasn’t necessarily lifting anything, but because I contortioned myself in an odd way, I ended up wrenching my back. Actually, I didn’t really notice it much until bedtime, and that is when the pain really kicked in. Could hardly move, and seriously could NOT lift a thing! Russ was as helpful as he could be, but we’d worked so hard throughout the day that even he was exhausted.

To make matters worse, later that evening, Russ got up the wrong way from the chair at the computer and REALLY threw his hip out of alignment. He spent much of the night, like me… tossing, turning, moaning and groaning. Painful thoughts of moving file cabinets to the front yard flashed through our heads into the wee hours of the morning.

Around 5:30 I managed to get into the shower and get my sore body moving. I hobbled downstairs and looked at the daunting pile of sale items before me. I was tempted to turn around and head back to the shower, but the signs and ads were posted, and I knew yard sale shoppers would be arriving soon.

I had to divert away from the pile for a few minutes to make a trip to our neighbor's house to check on their Greyhound, Nancy. They were away for the weekend, and Nancy had injured her tail (long story), so they asked Russ and I to check on her throughout the weekend. What was cool about the task is that we have always loved their house. Even better... they are considering selling it. Even better.... it would be in our price range!!!

Once back home after checking on Nancy, I started out with little things, and soon Russ joined me, although the grimace on his face made ME start to hurt all over again!

As we were about finished bringing out items to the yard, the first shoppers arrived. Liam had joined us by this time, and so he and his Daddy went to McDonald’s to fetch us some breakfast.

The yard sale went on until 1:00 or so, and it was a steady flow. We’d managed to get ourselves limbered up and were in pretty good spirits despite chasing the shade out of the looming sun. We made about $100, but more importantly, found homes for about half of the junk… I mean… items we wanted to. We then took a couple of boxes of books to the library, and the rest of the stuff to a local thrift store. They almost didn’t take our file cabinets that didn’t sell, but with a little begging, they caved in and left us only with a sad little bread machine. No, it didn’t come home with us. I felt no mercy, and since we hadn’t used it in about 2 years, we tossed it in a convenient dumpster.

Saturday night our muscles began to tighten up again, but we were satisfied with a hard day done. It was a lot of work, but the house was really starting to clear out and look presentable for the market.

Sunday, Liam and I made breakfast for Daddy since it was Father’s Day. We lounged about and enjoyed a lazy morning.

After a while we decided to box up a few remaining items and take them to the storage garage. It would hopefully be our last trip there until our official MOVING day. Good thing too, because the 10x10 area only had about 1x1 left!

We got the bed set back up in the Guest Room, and I started putting our house back together. We have a list of small jobs still left to do, including painting the guest room, and staining some of the windowsills, but all in all, we’ve considered the house saleable. We’ve got 4 realtors scheduled for interviews this week, so the ball continues to roll, and is picking up speed.

Guess we should be expecting a speed bump any day now… having a baby will be a great way to relax!! ;)

PS... this is where Nancy the Greyhound lives (for now - wink wink)

6:42 am est

Monday, June 12, 2006

June 10-11, 2006

Well last week had an interesting episode on Wednesday. Erin had had what semed be contractions all day and we visisted Nurse Naaru after work has it was scehduled. The baby has dropped and Erin is 1 cm. That night when we arrived home the contractions started to get stronger. We started timing them and they got down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds apart and then started to spread out again to 7 minutes and we stopped tracking them. After this occurred Wednesday Erin has been fine and no real contractions have re-occurred.

On Friday night we went out to dinner, at Bear Creek, with the Proffens. It was great to see them. They have recently moved but were in the area for a Doctor's appointment. After dinner Carl and I ran down to St. Mary's city to find a geocache that we didn't due to darkness. Jodi and Erin played wit the kids. Caleb is definitely Liam's first buddy and Liam has missed him. It was also neat to see Liam interact with the Proffens 6 month old daughetr Abigail. Good sign of things to come for us.

On Saturday Erin made us a rather hearty breakfast. I was glad as it was to be a tedious day. While Erin continued boxing items. I loaded up both vehicles with moving stuff for the Storage area we were to rent that day. I took a break and ran to the tag place to turn in the plates from the Saturn. I need to do that as we insured the Saturn for the month of June to get it up to Pennsylvania. Now I can drop it.

We went to the storage place and immediately knew after looking at a 5X10 it was too small. We rented a 10 X 10 and were lucky enough that it was right around the corner and the unit itself was near the front. Itwas amazing how much more the Town & Country could hold than the Jeep.

We were getting hungry so we swung over to CiCi's pizza but it was packed with birthday people. We went on down to Ledo's and waited a while while we watched one of their waitresses pass out twice in front of us. The ambulance came and took her away. at first they were going to let her stay but before they even left the parking lot she hit the floor again. We headed to the grocery for just a few items. We also got Banana boxes while there. We packed another load in the Van.

That evening we had Snow Crab all three of us. Liam loves the stuff. After we got Liam to bed we watched a really good movie called Derailed. It had Clive OWen and Jennifer Anniston in it and had a very nice plot twist in it.

On Sunday we awoke to get ready to go see the movie Cars! It was Liam's first real time to teh movie theatre. I was warned by many that Liam may not hold out and get loud, bored or fidgety but I had a lot of confidence that Liam would be captivated by the cars. We got a popcorn and all shared it and Liam sat between us in a booster seat. We only had to shush him a couple of times. He sat in his mom's lap for a little and mine about a half hour but he never fell alseep and his eyes got huge when they raced. HE even gave me a critique of the movie as I carried him out. "Tractors scary daddy." It was a blast and the movie itself was AWESOME for any age 2-90!!!

After the movie we had to run to Target to pick up a shredder and Erin wanted new mats for the master bathhroom. I couldn't resist getting Liam a little remote controlled car from the movie Cars. They only had one left on the shelve. We then ran another load of both vehicles to storage. The guest room is almost ready to put back together after being storage itself for two months. Once back home we began the painful process of going through all our paperwork. I have saved everything from 1996 on. We did that into the night. I cooked steaks on the grill while playing with Liam and his new car while Erin got the rest of dinner around. Erin talked with her Sister Dawn and I shredded all night until the NBA game was over.

This week we shall continue to get the paperwork shredded and boxed and also prepare for the yard sale we are to have next week.... and ya never know when Baby Cole may decide to arrive. ;-)

11:32 am est

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

June 2-4, 06

Well, we can't say this was a relaxing weekend. Not many of them are lately. However, we did get some primary tasks completed - and even a quick trip to PA too!

Friday morning started with a Doctor's appt. Everything is progressing normally, and we figure we're still weeks away from the baby coming into the world. This was a good thing, because later that afternoon, we planned to take a quick trip up to PA to deliver Russ's old 1996 Saturn to Noah, who is now 16!

Our trip North was delayed slightly because we had to wait for TiresPlus to put on a part that hadn't come in yet. Little did we know, the mechanic - knowing our urgency - actually drove about an hour an a half North to get it himself!! So, we were caravanning on the road by 2:30.

We enjoyed an evening all together with Marcie and Noah. We'd ordered pizza, and just enjoyed visiting and watching movies. Liam, as usual, was delighted with Grandmom's toys.

Saturday morning, we treated ourselves to a DANDY breakfast at the Dublin Diner. We don't have any good diners here in MD, so it was a wonderful treat, and I savored EVERY bite of my breakfast - AND some of Liam's chocolate chip pancakes too!

Then, we helped gather some of Marcie's yard sale items (for our impending yard sale) and Noah and Russ cleaned out the Saturn for the Father to Son transition.

We took a jaunt to Noah's tech school for a bit of a driving lesson in the big parking lot. He did really well, and is already talking about putting in a CD player. We are glad he could have the old car, and hope it gets him about town over the next couple of years.

We didn't really want to cut the visit short, but knowing that the baby is due to arrive soon, we didn't want to push our luck, being so far from home. So, we headed South again around 2:30 - only having to return a half hour into the trip because Russ forgot his bag in "Noah's Car." It was a long drive home, but the new DVD player in the Van helped a little. Liam was VERY tired of riding despite the half dozen shows we scrolled through.

It was nice getting home. While we were away we'd noticed that the handyman we'd hired to do a few jobs around the house, had completed his tasks. He'd painted the downstairs ceiling, and it REALLY looks wonderful. It has brightened things up trememdously! He'd also fixed our shed door, our front door lock, and even installed a new sink faucet for us!

Sunday morning brought a list of tasks. We are getting a bit burnt out with all the home tasks, but we are in the final stretch now. I worked on the front door painting, while Russ worked on sorting and boxing our plethera of books. I joined him after the door was done, and we managed to fill 16 banana boxes of books we want to KEEP! That's still not counting the books we have yet to bring down from the attic!! EEK! We did manage, however, to weed out a good couple of boxes worth to go in the yard sale. I hope the closet cleaning is more productive! We plan to put stuff into a storage facility this coming weekend.

Sunday afternoon, we called a halt to our tasks to go run a few errands and get some groceries and new ceiling vents. That evening we had a nice dinner together, and watched half of the movie Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom.

12:25 pm est

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